Mushrooms Benefit Health – But How Far Do We Go?

Mushrooms Benefit Health

The Perry Family loves coffee, except Mom. But even we are unsure about mushrooms in coffee… for taste among other reasons. There is no doubt that mushrooms benefit health. However, even good things can be taken too far. If we think of food as medicine then we must also appreciate the power of food. More is not necessarily better. Purposeful changes in diet should be made in consultation with a trained professional, whether conventional nutritionist or Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner or Ayurveda provider or other established field.

We all want to sleep better and feel less stressed out, to have more energy and fewer illnesses, and we’d like to be able to think more clearly, too. If only there were a magical potion we could drink to obtain all of these qualities.

Makers of what have been deemed “functional mushrooms” think they have that elixir. The ancient practice of consuming mushrooms for their medicinal properties – a part of holistic medicine – has been popping up in more and more health cafes and packaged goods. They fit into the emerging category of “adaptogenic foods” – foods with natural compounds that promote or restore normal physiological functioning – and trend watchers predict that 2018 is the year they’ll go mainstream.

Mushrooms have been used medicinally for centuries. The Greek physician Hippocrates classified the amadou mushroom as an anti-inflammatory and for cauterizing wounds, and Ötzi, the Ice Man, carried a pouch of mushrooms with him, according to the journal Integrative Medicine. These days, you can go to a wellness cafe in Los Angeles, such as Lifehouse Tonics, and order a “‘shroom shake” or a lemon juice tea with mushrooms in it. Mushroom teas have a high-profile booster in Gwyneth Paltrow, the famous peddler of domestic potions for the elite on her lifestyle website, Goop. One company promoted on her site, Moon Juice, sells powdered mushrooms that the company claims each enhance a different aspect of a person: their beauty, brains, sex life, mood and energy.

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